


A Legendary Monster

by jenaicompris



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Zombies, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-03
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-03-20 23:40:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3669471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenaicompris/pseuds/jenaicompris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inquisition shifted and dropped flat on its back in the middle of a futuristic zombie outbreak set in Thedas. Elements of real-world Earth thrown in. Same characters, all human. Previously titled Doom Upon All the World.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Waking Up New

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what's going on. This is not what I intended to write.

I woke up after a slap of cold to my face, coughing and sputtering at the water that tried to invade my body by way of whatever orifice it could find.

“Was that completely necessary?” A voice, an accent I couldn’t place, spoke from outside of my field of vision.

Another voice, lower but still a woman’s I thought, responded as my eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room. “Had to wake her up somehow. Would you have preferred the car battery?”

The first voice, belonging to a hooded figure on my blurred periphery, responded with a surprisingly lady-like snort.

“What,” I started, my voice cracked and my throat dry, “…what…what’s going on? Who are you people?”

“That’s what we were going to ask you,” the hooded figure responded without much emotion. “My name is Leliana and this is Cassandra.”

Without my glasses or contacts, I could barely make out their forms let alone the specifics of their faces or their clothing. And then her round-about question hit me. I opened my mouth to respond but couldn’t find the words. I searched my brain for the answer to their question and couldn’t find it. In fact, I couldn’t find anything. A sob wracked my body and I tried to lift my hands to my face to cover it but found that my wrists were strapped to my chair. Tilting my head back, I looked wildly between the two of them, “I don’t…I can’t _remember_. Oh Maker, I can’t _remember who I am_.”

The words they spoke to me, the concepts they said, some of them struck a chord but most of them were beyond what I could comprehend. This resulted in them explaining everything.

I had been found in the rubble of a building, the only person alive. There had been a gathering there, a gathering of the separated factions of the Chantry as they came together to discuss the corruption that had occurred. The Chantry, they explained, was a faction of the government. It was the religious body that essentially directed most of Thedas’ decisions. The Divine, the head of the Chantry, was dead and gone. The two of them had been her closest confidantes – removed from the Chantry as they served the Divine, not the purpose of the church.

And I was the only person that survived the explosion that killed her.

And I couldn’t remember anything. Including my name, who I was, where I was from, or _anything_ before waking up to a splash of water in the face.

The doctor they had on staff, Adan, informed us that I had retrograde amnesia – meaning I had no memories from before whatever stole them, but could make new memories.

They just didn’t know _why_.

They had me in Haven, codename for the city their base was in. In a cell. They were moving me to what they lovingly called the “alchemist’s chambers” so that Adan and another man named Solas could pick apart my brain to find out what I knew.

I don’t remember much of the first few days in Haven as it was mostly a blur of buzzes, whizzing, beeps, and flashes of light. They ran every test they could come up with, Adan working predominately with my body and Solas working predominately with my mind. The latter was a strange man; slight and bald, but clearly the hair situation was by choice. He had old but kind eyes and warm hands that smoothed my hair before he put the metal cap that would read my thoughts atop my head.

The first solid memory I have after waking up is Cassandra coming to take me back to the chantry (they couldn’t come up with anything more creative?), which served as their base of operations for the most part. It was also the church, which I thought was kind of weird – but also really clever. Who’s going to attack a church?

I’m not really sure why they decided to tell me the truth. I was actually pretty confident the only reason they did was because they intended on killing me. It was a gut feeling, leaving me shifting nervously whenever faced with Cassandra or Leliana.

The former removed me from my bed and led me by the arm to what she called the War Table, wherein a small group of people awaited us.

Solas had convinced Leliana into getting me a pair of glasses so that I could actually _see_ what was going on. With them on I clearly saw the Seeker insignia on Cassandra’s polo; in between my sessions with Solas and Adan, I was able to read up on the world and re-learn everything I had spent my life discovering. My head swam with the knowledge but Seekers, I knew, were like detectives kind of. They were a special branch of the Chantry’s military force that was dedicated to _discovering_ more than _fighting_. From Cassandra’s build, though I bet she could do some serious fighting.

Leliana, the woman that had been wearing the hood, was lithe and tall. Her body’s curves were dangerous for men and women alike and her bright blue eyes held secrets that I couldn’t begin to comprehend. Her accent, I learned, was Orlesian. Cassandra was Navarran and I, by the sound of my voice according to Varric, was from a place called Ostwick in the Free Marches. Varric was a wonderful man that had come to visit me and was the only way I had learned anything since waking up with no memory. He was very short but muscular in his own way and the crossbow he had strapped to his back definitely required some prowess. I hadn’t seen him use it, not yet, but I could only imagine it would be a thing to behold.

He wasn’t in the room and neither was Solas, both of which would have been a welcome sight as they were the kindest to me. Cassandra was gruff and seemed to still believe me a terrorist, while Leliana was practically impossible to read.

Another woman had joined them; young and pretty, dark-skinned and from Antiva, or so Varric told me. She was polite and well-spoken and made me feel like a bumbling idiot in my torn, too-big clothing and chunky glasses. Her name was Josephine. She was the political mind there, good at making alliances and even better at throwing parties. Or so I was told.

Commander Rutherford was the only man in the room; he was built like a tank. Tall, broad and muscled to hell. He looked like he should have been anywhere but among a military group, even with the scar on the right side of his lip. And that _voice_. How were all of these people so goddamn good-looking?

 Cassandra set down a file she had been carrying on the large table that everyone sat at. It was circular and the Seeker suggested a seat that I slowly slid into, across from the Commander, between the Seeker and Josephine. It was a sterile room, with fluorescent lights that flickered every once and a while. The table and chairs were uncomfortable metal, not meant for long-term conversations. We had gone down a hallway, through several doors, down a flight of stairs, and through a whole labyrinth of more hallways before we finally found the War Table. I was exhausted trying to remember it and disoriented like you wouldn’t believe. Or maybe you would.

The Seeker slid the file across to Leliana who opened it, scanned it. Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly before she nodded, slid it to Josephine. She said, “Oh my!” after a moment before finally offering it to the Commander.

“Maker’s breath,” he murmured with his head bent as he examined the contents of the folder in front of him. He tilted his head back and his eyes, the color of sap and just as hard to remove myself from, aligned with mine. He slid the folder my way, still open, and hadn’t looked away by the time I had turned my gaze to the papers in front of me.

It was me. A picture of me in the top right corner, the sort of picture that I hadn’t known was being taken. It had an unfamiliar name along the top, _Trevelyan Echo_. A thick line separated the name from clumps of words:

Date of Birth: 09/09/2058  
Height: 177.37cm  
Weight: 9.3st  
Eyes: Blue  
Hair: Dark brown  
Work: unemployed, student  
Family History: Youngest child, only surviving member after the outbreak in Ostwick, FM. Mother was head scientist at OL, father was politico that pushed for FBill to pass. Sister Juliett and brother Romeo contracted disease, deceased.  
Hobbies: unknown  
Skills: unknown

Scrawled along the bottom of the page in slanted handwriting, _Blood Type O-, antibodies present. Brain patterns suggest high level of intelligence, prefrontal cortex response to stimuli suggests potentially accessible memories of event. Need more tests to determine likelihood of success._

The words made sense, conceptually – but I didn’t know what the hell any of it meant, except that my family was dead. A family I didn’t remember having.

My name was Echo.

“Echo?” I frowned, lifting my head and closing the folder over. “Seems like an odd choice.”

“It’s the phonetic alphabet,” the Commander offered. “Echo is for ‘e’, Juliett is ‘j’, and Romeo is ‘r’. They used to use it over radio, to ensure the meaning was clear. When the airwaves worked consistently.”

“Original, I guess,” I frowned a little but shrugged. I knew my name, at least. Even if it didn’t mean anything or hold any memories. I still didn’t know what I liked, who I was, or what I wanted out of life. Not that I thought I’d be given much of a choice in the matter in Haven. “What does the rest of this mean? I mean the handwriting. And what disease? And what’s an FBill? And the OL?”

The other four people in the room shared looks for a moment before Josephine began to tell me the tale of how the world had come crumbling down, ten years before in 2066. It started with the research into genetic warfare that had been, up until the passage of the FBill, banned by the Chantry. My father, apparently, had gotten enough backing of the clerics, chancellors, mothers, sisters, and brothers of the church to pass the bill despite the Divine’s assistance that it was a terrible idea. With the research of genetic warfare came the research into diseases that had long-since died off among the general populace.

And with that, came the outbreak.

There was some consternation as to whether or not the outbreak was entirely unintentional. That was part of the reason the four people I sat with had gotten together to begin with. With the outbreak came the general dissolve of the Chantry’s power, as people believed that it had allowed such terrible things to happen. The military faction of the Chantry, the Templar Order, wanted nothing to do with the mages. The mages were the scientists, for the most part – there was more than science to what they did, being people born with a gift that allowed them to use more of their brain potential than the average person. Those were the mages, and more often than not, they played the scapegoat for every terrible thing that happened – including the outbreak. Because who else would be able to unlock the secrets of those diseases like a mage?

The Divine had called a meeting of the minds, across the entirety of the world, to hope that they could come to an agreement about how to proceed – and how they could rid humanity of the terror of the disease. They had started calling it mortalisviv – basically alive-dead, from what they told me. To avoid confusion with the mortalitasi (special mages that studied dead things and resurrection and all that crazy stuff, which we needed especially now I guess) they started just calling them Vay – Orlesian for ‘v’. Which, don’t even get me started on how round about that is. The things _started_ in Ostwick, or at least that was the first major outbreak they could trace, and were named from the Tevene language but nicknamed in Orlesian? Funny how things like a terrible disease outbreak can bring people together, I guess.

Apparently, though, my blood type was important. Like, ultra-important  because the story was that it could be transfused into anyone else and there wasn’t anybody left with it.

Like at all.

Just me.

I mean, clearly they hadn’t blood typed every single living person in all of Thedas, but I had just fallen into their laps.

And O- never caught the disease. For instance, they told me, my mother didn’t die from turning into a Vay. She was killed by one. Or several.

Torn apart, they said. But, you know, semantics.

And, apparently, I was the only living person that had any idea what happened at the Haven Conclave – even if I couldn’t remember.

And my blood could save the world.

I snorted at the thought and the room turned to look at me; I pushed the thick glasses back up my nose and pulled my feet onto the chair, curling my arms around me shins. “Sorry. I..uhh… Yeah. There’s really nothing to say about this. It’s kind of ridiculous and insane. And a lot to take in.”

“The world is falling apart around us and you’re laughing?” the Seeker asked, incredulous.

“Technically it was a snort,” I responded, eyes widening as the words left my mouth. Apparently I was cheeky; good to know. “I don’t remember any other world, so it’s perfectly normal to me.”

The Commander made a noise that sounded sort of positive but he cleared his throat quickly and wouldn’t catch my eyes.

“So will you help us?”

“Help you? Do what?”

“Fix this.”

“How the hell am I supposed to help _you_? I don’t even know what I was going to school for; it could’ve been like…. _art_ or _philosophy_. Maker, I hope I wasn’t a photography student. I’m skinny as a rail for whatever reason…oh dear sweet Andraste, there’s nothing about me being a model is there?” I grabbed the folder back and flipped through the pages. No, I was just thin. Maybe naturally, maybe because I’d been doing it to myself. “Doesn’t matter. The point is, I’m worthless. I don’t know what I can do and I doubt any of it'll be useful to you.”

“Then we’ll find out,” Leliana responded with the smallest of smiles.

 I was suddenly very, very afraid of what exactly that could mean.


	2. Hope and Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I literally have no idea where any of this is coming from. I have no plans. Not a clue what's going on. Someone please tell me if they like this or if it's just weird. I feel like it's weird. I wanted to write about spies. And zombies happened instead. (Also thank you for my kudos.)

I’m relatively confident that I was on my way to dying before I fell into the craziness that landed me in Haven. I hadn’t looked in a mirror until after the War Table meeting  - well I had glanced in the shiny surfaces around me to get an idea of what I was working with but only long enough to glean the basics, never really long enough to notice just how bad it was – I was hideous and sickly. It was a wonder I wasn’t turning then all to stone from looking at me – in addition to the blue-gray, black, and yellow that mottled the majority of my bruised and broken body, I was little more than a skeleton. And not in the attractive, healthy way that some people could pull off.  Nothing wrong with being thin, but I was practically two dimensional. Like the gaunt, gray-tinged malnourished sort of way that resulted from not eating, or not eating much, for an extended period of time. And maybe living underground.

In fact, I had them all so worried that I could drop dead with all of the secrets in my head and in my blood that they hooked me up to machines that would feed and water me, like an invalid. Or a plant. Well, I guess you don’t really feed plants because of photosynthesis or whatever. Varric and Solas kept my company, alternating times of day. I was alone with worn-out books more often than not, which wasn’t really a problem for me. I’m not sure what I was like before, but solitude agreed with me after.

One day, a little over a week into my bed rest, Commander Rutherford knocked against the doorway. It wasn’t a proper room and there was no actual door, but he was being polite.

In addition to the tubes, they generally made me try to eat also. Didn’t want my stomach to disappear or something I guess. There was a mostly untouched tray of food on the left side of my bed.

The Commander was dressed to the nines, although I wasn’t certain if I had just caught him dressed well twice or if it was a constant state of impressiveness. He had stopped wearing his Chantry uniform when he came to Haven, according to Varric.

“Uhh…serrah?” he called at the door and his miss-placed shyness made me smile.

“Hello, Commander. You can come in if you want. Solas brought in a chair ages ago,” I gestured to the chair on the right side of my bed and watched as he crossed in front of me, setting a vase on the tiny metal table between the chair and bed before handed me a book.

The flowers in the vase were mainly green with red centers but, more than that, they smelled lovely. Sweet and light, with a hint of something like cinnamon.

“Embrium,” he offered as he glanced to what he brought me. “They’re said to have healing properties. I figured they couldn’t hurt.”

“To my knowledge, you are the only person in all of my life that has brought me flowers,” I smiled at him, touched by his thoughtfulness. He chuckled a little at my phrasing, a light dusting of embarrassed color in his cheeks. “I mean, it isn’t as if any of you know me and should really care that I’m bed-ridden. But still. It was sweet.”

“It’s basically up to you to save us,” he smiled a little, lifting a hand to rub the back of his neck. He looked younger than I thought he was originally – early- to mid-thirties, despite the war-worn look that haunted him. I was eighteen, or so they told me. I felt like I was a newborn, or maybe a hundred, though, so I don’t really know how that worked.

“And I don’t see how that’s true, I’m just a kid that was in the wrong place at the wrong time with magic blood. Or something.”

“You know, somewhere in there, who caused the collapse at the conclave. Or at least probably. And we may be able to find a cure from your blood. We’ve tested everyone here, you’re it. And it looks like you’ve been doing well since you came here.”

I lifted my arm and rotated my wrist – I still wasn’t anywhere near where an adult’s should be, but I could eat solid food more than once a day and my skin was evening into a real person’s color, rather than that of a corpse. “Well, I’m glad I could help. Or can help. And I’m really glad you guys were willing to help _me_. I definitely don’t know what was going on with me before, but I have to believe I’m in a better place than I was, considering.”

“Even if you couldn’t help us and you had just wandered in, I doubt anyone would have just let you die. From what Adan and Solas have told us, it’s a wonder you survived as long as you did.”

“So I’m a survivor,” I murmured as I reached to take up the notebook, pen holding my place, that sat atop the blanket at my side.

“What do you mean?” he asked as he settled in the chair finally. Because of the height of the bed and of him, he was practically on my level when he sat down.

I felt heat in my cheeks and I laughed a little at myself. “I don’t…ehhh, I don’t know who I am, right? I keep trying to piece together my personality.” I settled the notebook over my thighs after I bent my knees to create a writing surface. As I flipped over the book and readied my pen, I turned to look at him. “Varric gave these to me. Partially so I could write down anything I remember but partially so I can rebuild myself. Or relearn myself, I guess.”

“So what have you discovered so far?” The smile on his face made me believed it really did matter to him. I wished, suddenly, that my hair was clean.

“Uhh…I tend towards sarcasm, I hate the color yellow, love the color red. I love noodles,” I paused, scribbled down something before I looked back up at him, “I love the smell of embrium flowers, and  I really like when handsome men bring me books in bed.”

The Commander’s face colored a little and he let out a laugh, “Is that your sarcasm coming out?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” I rolled my eyes and set my notebook down to pick up the book he had brought me. “Varric has brought me countless tales.”

He chuckled and shifted in the chair, “Well that one is about the Blight. It happened right before the FBill was passed, the year previous. It’s the reason why guns were outlawed, why we have swords and things instead of machine guns. I don’t know how much political or military history Varric’s been telling you, I thought it might…help.”

Varric had told me a little about the Blight – mostly to explain why he had a crossbow, after I asked him about it. Her. Bianca. His crossbow, I mean – her name is Bianca. I turned the book over in my hands; the pages were dog-eared and it was clearly well-loved. I preferred books that way and smiled; one more thing I discovered about myself.

“So…we went from no guns to genetic warfare?”

“Tevinter,” the Commander frowned. “At least, that’s what we believe at this point. It was never officially revealed, but there is a strong belief among us in the Inquisition that Tevinter started this whole thing.”

“Which means that my father was in bed with Tevinter?” I frowned a little too, the book all but forgotten in my lap as I looked at him. The Inquisition, as such, was basically the four people that had sat at the table with me. There were a lot of other people involved too, but they were the brains. And Solas.

“Or he was in the pocket of someone that was,” he shook his head a little, hands still in his lap while mine fidgeted with the frayed hem of my scratchy blanket. “You may be the only person that can tell us. Then again, you may not know. You may never have seen the person or persons responsible for the destruction of the conclave and your father may never have said a word around you about it.”

I smiled wanly, “But we’re hoping I narrowly missed being taken out by the bad guys and that I could spot them in a crowd, as well as tell you verbatim every detail of what led my father to the FBill and my mother to maybe creating the outbreak?”

The Commander’s lips curled up ever so slightly, a small amount of sadness tugging at the corners of his eyes as he shrugged a little. “We can hope, can’t we?”

“I don’t have anywhere else to go, so I suppose you’re stuck with me, Commander. And eventually we’ll find out who I am and what I know.” Or at least I hoped so.

“What if who you believe yourself to be isn’t necessarily who you discover that you were?” he asked after a moment, concern etched on his face.

“You mean with list I’m creating?” He nodded and I shrugged, “I figure what I like isn’t going to change. I mean, I could have been an absolutely terrible person because of things I don’t remember effecting me, I suppose. We don’t even know if _I_ wasn’t the person that blew everything up. I don’t _feel_ like that kind of person, but I don’t… I mean, I just don’t know, you know?” I sighed and wrapped my arms around my shins, hugging my legs closer to my chest. “I don’t _want_ to be that person, Commander. I want to be the kind of person that likes embrium and noodles and getting books from men like you.”

He put his hand on the side of the bed, as if he was reaching out to me but couldn’t quite make it. “I have an excess of memories I would love to forget and I have done things I regret. If this person, the you after losing your memories, is the person you want to be…well, I say be that person. But, if it’s any consolation, I doubt you did it. You just…” He paused, his hand clenching around the blanket before he released it and pulled his hand away. “…you don’t seem the type, is all.”

“That…” I sighed a little in relief, letting my legs slid forward and leaning backwards. I made a disgruntled noise and fought my pillow until the Commander stood up and said, “May I?” before taking it from behind me. He fluffed it a little and slid it behind me as I relaxed onto it. “Thank you,” I smiled, pulling the blanket up to my chest. “What I wanted to say was…I really appreciate you saying that. And believing in me. And coming here. And my presents.” I let out a stream of air, turning to look up at him and smiling. “Just thank you. I’m sure you have way more important things to do than sit here and convince me I’m _not_ the Ruiner of All Things.”

He chuckled and reached out, touching my arm just barely. “Everyone needs a break sometimes, myself included.”

“Well…uhh, if you ever need another one, you know where to find me. I mean. If you want to.”

“And when they let you back to the land of the living, I’m with the recruits mostly. The barracks or the training field.” He hesitated, smiled as turned to walk towards the doorway. He paused there, a hand on the wood. “Rest up, Serrah Trevelyan. I look forward to our breaks.”

As he turned about and left me alone, I reached for my notebook again to scribble down:

_I am really, really bad at flirting._

I snorted a little before I settled back into my pillow and picked up _And So Is the Golden City Blackened_ , the book that the Commander had brought me about the Blight. It was dry but the notes in the margins, written in precise block letters, had me turning the book all about as I tried to learn more about the man that wore only suits.


	3. Discovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I think the next one will be longer. In which Echo discovers that she is only mostly useless.

It was another week of bedrest before they made me start exercising with any consistency. Instead of just walking down the hall, I was expected to go outside, to walk around. I was tired out easily at first but by the end of my third week in Haven, I was able to walk around without any assistance for hours – although I didn’t usually do it by myself.

I could finally bathe myself, which meant I could take a shower whenever I wanted to. I was no longer hooked up to the machines that were keeping pumped full of nutrition and so it was my responsibility to feed myself, something that the Commander often took upon himself to see to. They moved me from the hospital to a small, studio apartment nestled in a building between the chantry and the barracks. I still had to go see Adan and Solas for tests every day – to monitor my improvement, to give more blood, to scan my brain. Solas spent more time talking to me than he did testing me; I was beginning to think he was in charge of my psychological recovery, even if he seemed to know a lot about the physical side of stuff. He was more often than not explaining what Adan muttered under his breath.

After I was able to act like a person again, they slowly started testing me outside of the lab. By that, I mean they put me in situations to see what my immediate responses would be. I fell, quite literally, on my ass more often than not. I could barely lift a sword, couldn’t aim a bow, and definitely wasn’t a mage. I couldn’t do anything, at least not as though I had done it for all of my life, that they put me up to.

After dinner one night about a month after finding myself in Haven, the Commander and I were strolling through the chantry discussing how things had changed from religion to politics in the course of history. He told me the story of Andraste, repeated a few of his favorite verses of the Chant of Light.  Told me what it was like to be a templar.

“What’s it like to have a purpose?”

“You have a purpose, Echo.”

I rolled my eyes, waving my hand at him dismissively. “Now isn’t the time for platitudes, Commander. You know what I mean. What is it like to be a _part_ of something like the templars or the Inquisition?”

“You’re a part of the Inquisition.”

“Not…not a helpful one,” I laughed, sliding my hands into the pockets of my jeans. Josephine had been able to find a pair that fit me now that I was on my way to being a solid person again. I was still too small for my own liking, but I was far more filled out than I had been when I arrived. “If you all didn’t need me to continually make blood and possibly tell you who killed the Divine, I wouldn’t really be able to do anything for you.”

“That you know of _yet_.”

“What else is there? I can’t even throw a punch.”

“That is something you can learn,” he responded as we strolled through the halls. He paused to open a door for me, at which point I led us into the chapel. I touched each pew as I walked passed, eyes forward on the statue of Andraste. “People are trained to fight with swords, bows, daggers. You were from a very…high profile family. It only makes sense that-”

“-I am completely useless as a human being?” I snorted, looking over my shoulder at him. He shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest, as if to say he was not amused. I grinned at him and turned back around, stopping short of the dais that led to the oversized statue. “I know that’s not what you meant, even if it is true. But there really isn’t _anything_ we’ve found that I _can_ do.”

He broached the space between us, standing within arm’s reach. “Then you can learn now. When you feel up to it, join us on the training grounds.”

“Don’t you remember what happened the first time?”

He chuckled a little and shrugged, letting his hands fall to his sides. “I can train you. I’ll go easy on you. Leliana is much better with daggers and bows than I am, but it can’t hurt to learn how to wield a sword.”

“It’d just be nice to have _something_ , you know?”

He hesitated a moment before his eyes alighted on something behind me, at which point he took me gently by the hand without a word and led me forward into the chapel. I looked around to see what was going on and realized he was leading me to the church’s piano. He let my hand go as we came upon then bench, gesturing for me to sit. I rolled my eyes at him and did so, shaking my head. “This is going to go as well as when Leliana tried to get me to sing.”

“Don’t know until you try,” he shrugged a little and leaned against the side of the upright, waiting for me to put my hands on the keys.

“Fine, fine, fine,” I sighed and lifted my hands, setting my fingers on the keys. I pressed down one of the middle white ones and the piano sang. I continued to press random keys for a moment before I closed my eyes and let my hands do whatever they wanted.

And boy, did they _want_. My hands seemed to move of their own volition as I sat there, opening my eyes to watch in awe as the song played through me.

I was doing it. I was doing _something_. _I could_ do _something_!

The Commander shifted, leaning his forearms atop the piano and resting his chin on his arms as he watched me. I caught the smile on his lips and my fingers slipped, my cheeks heating up immediately. I let my hands fall to my lap and let out a big breath, rubbing my hands on my jeans as I looked up at him.

“Well then,” I laughed a little, feeling awkward and nervous as I clenched my fingers against my thighs. “Maybe I can play the terrorists into a false sense of security or something.”

The Commander let out a chuckle as he straightened up, leaving a hand on the back of the piano. “Maybe not, but now you know something else about yourself. And I’m sure no one would complain about hearing you play. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone play like that before. I mean, outside of the radio.”

“Did you like it?”

He looked at me curiously for a moment before he smiled, “Yes. And, from the look on your face, you did too. It’s nice to see you do something you enjoy.”

“Then you should like to see me whenever I’m with you.”

He raised an eyebrow and I laughed nervously, “What I mean is… I enjoy talking to you. So. You should like to see it when I talk to you. Because it’s the same.”

He smirked, shaking his head a little as he unbuttoned his suit coat and pushed the edges away, sliding his hands into the pockets of his pants. “I..uhh. I’m glad you do. Enjoy talking to me, I mean. I quite enjoy the time we spend together also.”

I stood from the bench, glancing out the stained glass window to see that the sun had set. “We’ve been out for a long time. I imagine you have paperwork that has to get done, or something equally thrilling.”

“I suppose you’re right.” He frowned a little before he gestured out, suggesting that I lead the way out of the chapel.  “I should have time tomorrow, if you make it to the training field. Perhaps before lunch?”

“I know Leliana wanted to go over some information with me,” I responded, holding the door for him  after I reached it. He took it from me and I smiled a little at his chivalry before I continued into the main hall. “But I can’t imagine it’ll take all morning.”

“You’d be surprised,” he grinned, offering me his arm. I slid my hand into the crook of his elbow and we walked side-by-side towards the front doors of the chantry. “It’s no matter, really. I can make time. We’ll have to get you fitted with the blacksmith for some armor.”

“We’ve gone full medieval, haven’t we?”

Cullen let out a laugh, “A lot of society still functions the same way it did before the FBill but without the guns, it was rather necessary to accommodate for the shift. So with swords came armor. Although I imagine our medicine is a slight sight better than ‘full medieval’, as you say.”

“Thank the Maker for that,” I murmured as we stepped into the cool night air. I suppressed a shiver and pressed a little closer to the Commander. He hesitated before removing his arm from mine and slid out of his jacket, offering it out to me. With an appreciative smile, I inserted myself into the body-warmed, silk-lined jacket. It was heaven. And it smelled like him. “Thank you, Commander.” He bowed a little, which made me giggle like an idiot which made _him_ grin, before he offered me his arm again. I took it without hesitation.

We walked in amiable silence for a few minutes as he walked with me the distance into the apartment building and all the way to my front door. As I fished my key from my pocket, I paused before putting it in the lock. “I have a question. I mean, if you don’t mind.”

“No, although the fact that you want to preface it makes me worried.” He smiled a little, rubbing the back of his neck like he always did when he was nervous.

“It’s kind of random, but nothing to be worried about, I don’t think. I was just wondering… I mean, I’ve never seen you wear a ring but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Are you…uhhh…are you married?”

A laugh burst from him that I hadn’t expected and he colored from the collar of his shirt to the roots of his hair, stumbling a little over his response. “I…uhh…no, I mean… uhh. I didn’t...have much of a chance. You’re not strictly forbidden from it as a templar, but it isn’t…it’s hard to form relationships outside of the Order, and you _are_ discouraged from fraternizing.”

“Oh,” I responded, not really sure what else to say. I wanted to ask him if the rules were the same for the Inquisition, but if my first question wasn’t obvious enough _that_ definitely would have been. “Well…thanks for tonight.” I turned enough to unlock my door before smiling at him. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Wait,” he started, putting a hand on my arm lightly. I rotated my body back to face him, my door half-open. I looked up at him expectantly and he hesitated with his hand on me. “I…uhh… you should ask Leliana about daggers and a bow tomorrow. So…you can train. I don’t know much, but I can show you the basics.”

“Right,” I smiled, “Thanks for reminding me.”

“Have…a good night,” he offered, hand slipping from me. I realized in that moment that I was still wearing his jacket.

And I didn’t say a word. When we finally parted, I closed the door behind me and rested my back against it. As weird as it might sound, I lifted the edge of the jacket to my face and sniffed it. I couldn’t keep the grin off of my face as embrium, coffee, and shoe polish drifted into my nose.

I’d never give the jacket back, as long as I could avoid it.

I took it off and draped it over the back of the chair as I got ready for bed, but laid it atop my blanket and snuggled under it before I fell asleep.

 

 __  
  
  



	4. Herald

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mostly conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lied, it's short. I haven't been feeling well and I've been working overtime. Hopefully I'll get out of this funk and write something worthwhile, here or on another story.

I left his jacket on my pillow when I got up, hoping that whatever remained of his scent would diffuse into it. I was given a meager wardrobe of civilian clothes, mostly jeans and t-shirts with a few non-descript sweatshirts and one jacket, and so I showered before dressing quickly, leaving for breakfast as the sun began to rise.

I found Varric and Solas seated across from each other in the mess hall – an old word, I was told. Military. After grabbing my tray, I settled in beside them.

“You look positively perky this morning,” Varric grinned, pushing over an extra cup of coffee he had gotten for me already in anticipation of my arrival.

“Good night’s rest,” I assured him with a smile over the rim of the reusable plastic cup.

“I don’t suppose that has anything to do with the Commander being seen walking you to your door last night?”

I rolled my eyes and tossed a piece of potato at him, “He always walks me to my door when we spend time together.”

“Which is rather more often than not,” Varric laughed and I glared at him as I shoveled eggs into my mouth. After chewing and swallowing, I shook my head.

“He taught me something about myself last night. And if you make that dirty, I’ll dump my tray on your head.”

Solas snorted quietly, as if he didn’t want us to know, before he smiled at me. “Best to eat the food. You’ll need all of your strength.”

“…for discovering yourself with the Commander?” Varric added before he ducked in anticipation of my retaliation.

I just huffed and nibbled on my meat patty (I don’t know what it was and didn’t dare ask) before the sniggering stopped. “I _mean_ he helped me figure out I have a special talent.”

The look on Varric’s face made me groan before I threw my hands into the air in defeat.

“I can play the piano,” I squealed, louder than I had intended. I lowered my head a little, looking around at the people that had turned at my outburst. “I…like, pretty well, I guess. It’s not very helpful for defeating the terrorists or the Vay, but…you know. It’s still nice to know.”

“Well, now we just have to discover some innate talent for hand-to-hand combat and you’ll be good to go.”  

Solas shook his head, “While the potential is there, I don’t believe we’ll be discovering any deep-seated fighting prowess.”

I frowned a little, disappointed by his lack of hope for me. “Why is that?”

“Regardless of your previous state, you don’t have any indications of much physical activity in your bones. You’ve never broken so much as a finger. You would have to be the most proficient fighter that has ever lived to avoid _any_ injuries. Additionally, while you were not in the news overmuch, there is no recorded history of you involved in any…instances. This is not to say that it is impossible for you to learn. Although I am quite surprised you are not a mage.”

I swallowed the chunk of potato I had been chewing before I repeated my last question.

“You have the capacity for it. Your brain scans show the same level of response to that of a trained mage. You just don’t seem to know… _how_.”

“Is that something I could have forgotten?”

“Unlikely. As of yet, though, all I have is theories. Although you have been recovering physically at a far more rapid pace than we expected from a regular human, we can’t directly attribute that to anything more than willpower.”

I wasn’t sure if Solas believed what he was saying, but Varric didn’t seem to agree with him. So we chatted about other things – I still didn’t know much, but I had a decent grip on the basics. I could at least,  more or less, keep up with the flow of conversation. After the food was eaten and Varric was telling me a tale of his vigilante friend Hawke I looked at the wristwatch that Cassandra had insisted I wear after she taught me how to read it.

“I’ve got to run, Leliana is expecting me.”

“See you for lunch?”

“If I make it out alive. The Commander offered to train me. I imagine I won’t be very interested in moving.”

“Training? Is that what they’re calling it now?” Solas asked with a slight smile.

“Solas!” I squeaked, incredulous. Varric threw his head back and laughed and laughed; he was still laughing when I exited the mess hall to find Leliana.

We spent the majority of the morning going over what I had learned since arriving in Haven, shifting gears so that Leliana could inform me of what my role would be.

I would be having regular blood draws done, as frequently as my body could handle and spending the bulk of my time doing exercises of my brain in an attempt to regain my memories.  We discussed my training with the Commander and she said she would have a bow and daggers sent to the training grounds for me; she, too, recommended that I was fitted for armor.

“Now, Josephine doesn’t think that this is a good idea,” Leliana watched me from across the table in the War Room. “But the rest of us think it’s very important for you to join us. To understand what the world is like now, you must see it. And to be able to see it, it is important that you can defend yourself. We aren’t going to let anything happen to you as long as we can avoid it. But the way things are now, it’s generally important for you to know how to protect yourself. There are too many people that can’t, everyone that we can train eliminates that many other potential people we have to protect.”

“I understand,” I smiled, feeling a little queasy. The idea of having to take care of myself in the face of danger set me on edge because even if I _had_ known how to, I didn’t then.

“Also…we are avoiding the use of your name,” she spoke as she stood from the table, moving towards the door as she ended our meeting. “We’ve spread the word here and, truthfully, the only people that know who you are you spend a considerable amount of time with. We have come up with a codename, an alias if you will. In the event that you _do_ know who the terrorists are, they _may_ know who _you_ are. It is best to avoid them discovering your whereabouts as long as we can avoid it.”

“And…uhh, what’s that? My alias, I mean.”

“You’re the Herald,” she responded with a small smiling, as if it was an inside joke.

I snorted, “And whose idea was that?”

“Why,” she began, opening the door and leading me towards the main body of the chantry again, “…I do believe it was Varric’s.”

Of _course_ it was.


	5. Coffee Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little more conversation, a little coffee, and a lot of wanting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been such a long wait. I'll hopefully be getting back into writing. I'll be moving in the next month and a half, so I'll be spending a lot of time packing and organizing stuff but I should be able to update something (probably this) soonish. The next chapter will likely involve seeing what has become of Thedas in this AU.

I was on my ass in about three seconds after the Commander handed me the practice daggers. I pushed forward and he retaliated with his wooden sword. Everything we used was wooden – especially since I was still in my jeans and t-shirt. He was in full armor and I couldn’t decide if he was hotter in a suit or in the metal; even with the slightly eccentric fur bits on his shoulders.

“That wasn’t fair,” I huffed as I stood, finding the smooth hilts of the daggers in my palms again.

“Dying isn’t fair,” he responded with a raised eyebrow. He set his sword and shield on the ground before he moved over to me. “May I?”

“I need all the help I can get,” I shrugged a little and he moved behind me; I was pressed close against his metal-covered body as his arms mimicked the length of mine. His gloved hands curved around mine after readjusting the way I held the weapons.

“I’m going to move, just try to move with me, okay?”

I nodded a little, afraid to hit his chin with the back of my head if I moved too much. He shifted our arms down a little, curving them up with the daggers at the ready; he pulled me down into a sort of lunge-beginning squat and I was practically half-sitting in his lap. It took every ounce of my own willpower to focus on the task at hand.

“Daggers are most proficient for backstabbing and, truth be told, rather underhanded attacks. When you become faster, it is easier to use more aggressive attacks but for the most part we’ll want you on the defensive for the time being. You’ll want to practice your ability to move quietly,” he chuckled softly into my hair, “…that isn’t something I am very good at. Leliana, like I said, is the most proficient. Varric is quite good too, but in a different way. He lacks the…finesse that she possesses.”

He remained close against me for quite some time, shifting with me and showing my muscles new ways to move. Eventually he parted from me and picked up his sword and shield again, putting himself in the same lungey-squatty position he had showed me.

“Try again?” he asked, tapping the shield lightly with the sword.

He knocked me on my ass every time.  At one point, he put down his weapons and went bare-fisted (well, with gloves on), simply batting away my attempts.

I came close once, finding what I thought was an opening at his abdomen. He caught me by the wrist and spun me around, almost like a dance, before he grabbed my other wrist and held them both behind me. I reflexively dropped both daggers, arching back to help lessen the pull on my shoulders.

He loosened his grip but didn’t let me go, his chest close to me as he all but pressed his mouth into my hair. “Looks like we’ll have to spend quite a bit more time out here together. Maybe we’ll try something different tomorrow.”

I didn’t realize until he let me go that the sun was setting. I rolled my shoulder and could feel the ache of the day in muscles I didn’t even know I had. I picked up the practice daggers and replaced them where he had shown me earlier before turning to take the sword and shield from him. “I can’t believe it’s this late. Time flies when you’re getting your ass handed to you, I guess.”

The Commander laughed, pulling the gloves off of his hands and tucked them into what I assumed to be his swordbelt, as there was a sword holstered (or whatever you call it) there. “It gets easier, I promise.”

“Sure, easy for you to say, Mr. Big and Scary.”

“You think I’m scary?”

“Well, when you’re pointing a sword at me, yeah, a little,” I grinned, rubbing my arms. Without keeping warm from moving, the night air was growing chilly. I really needed to remember to bring a sweatshirt with me. “No, not really, Commander. But that’s probably just because I’m not one of your recruits.”

“…Which means,” he smiled, “…you can call me Cullen, if you would prefer. Rather than ‘Commander’, I mean.”

“Cullen?” I repeated. “I didn’t even know you _had_ a first name,” I smirked, crossing my arms over my chest.

“Are you making fun of me, _Herald_?” He mirrored my expression, raising an eyebrow at me.

“Perish the thought, _Cullen_.” I couldn’t keep the smile off of my face. “I am starving. Do you want to get something to eat?”

“I would. Let us walk to the barracks. I can change into something a little more forgiving while you gather supplies. We can picnic in the chapel and you can exercise your fingers again.”

“If you insist,” I smiled a little and took the arm he offered me before we started to make our way towards the residential part of Haven. “Although I quite like the armor.”

“You do, do you?”

“Yeah, all you need is a horse and you’d be, like, a knight in shining armor,” I paused, pretending to remove a smudge from the metal over his chest. “Almost shining.”

He chuckled slightly, shaking his head, “Nothing so spectacular.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Co-…Cullen. But I suppose it’s best if you continue to think you’re nothing special, or else you’ll realize you don’t have to spend all your free time with me.”

“Now who’s being unrealistic?”

“You don’t have any free time?” I grinned and he laughed.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to talk to someone the way I talk to you. I…really enjoy our ‘breaks’ together.”

I wanted him to kiss me quite regularly but I _really_ wanted him to kiss me before he slid away from me at the door. He didn’t, though, just smiled at me.

“I do too. Anything in particular you’re in the mood for?”

_Please say ‘you’. Please, please…_

He shook his head, “I don’t know what will be left at this point, so anything is better than nothing.”

“Right-o,” I waved a little, feeling awkward as all hell. I mentally chided myself as I made my way to the mess hall. I thought better of it and went to my own apartment, grabbing the loaf of bread, beef jerky, and cheese that were a part of my rations. My “apartment” was little more than a room; it was a studio to begin with, the only extra room being the bathroom. Laundry was done en masse and food was served only in the mess hall. They gave us portions of food that didn’t require to be cooked aside from on the hotplate they gave us. There was no real kitchen to speak of, only food storage that could be eaten in such a Spartan way.

I completely forgot a sweatshirt but didn’t want to turn around and get it, concerned that Cullen had already beaten me to the chapel. I was wrong; I arrived to silence, although the candles were perpetually lit. I wasn’t sure how they did it, if they had people that checked on them or if it was something the mages conjured. It didn’t really matter; I set up the towel I had grabbed, as I had no real blanket to utilize, and put the food down on it on the floor beside the piano.

I stood for a long moment, looking at the piano. I hoped it would bring back some childhood memory but, when it didn’t, I moved to the bench. I let my fingers dance over the keys without making a sound before pressing down multiple keys at once. After that, I was lost. I closed my eyes and stopped listening, stopped thinking, just threw myself into playing as deeply and intensely as my body required of me.

I gave myself over to the music and the movement with no cognizant idea of what I was playing but somehow knowing if my fingers slipped and I had played the wrong notes, but I didn’t care.

I played and played no concept of what I was playing or for how long I did it. I didn’t stop until a noise caught me off-guard and I dropped my hands. Turning on the bench, I saw Cullen standing with a glass bottle of dark liquid in one hand, two squat glasses in the other, and something draped over his shoulder. He was smiling in a way I hadn’t see him do before. It was sort of reverent, I guess, and…appreciative. Almost….adoring, but that could have been entirely in my own head.

“I didn’t mean to startle you. I told you I wasn’t very good at being quiet.”

“How long were you there for?”

“Since you started playing,” he looked a little sheepish as he sat down his bounty atop the back of the piano before he draped himself there, the sweatshirt that had been on his shoulder left on the bench beside me. He gestured to it, “You looked like you were cold earlier and, as I suspected, you forgot a jacket.”

He wasn’t really dressed for the weather, although he was wearing a long-sleeved burgundy shirt. His pants were fitted, dark trousers not jeans. I was beginning to think he’d make a potato sack look divine.

“I…thanks,” I smiled at him, feeling silly but totally okay with it. I picked up his sweatshirt and slid it over my head, swallowed by the massive amount of dark red fabric. Most of the sweat from the day had dried between my relaxation and the cold but I still knew I was relatively unclean. I wanted a shower and I didn’t want any part of me to override the smell of him. I felt perfectly content as the now familiar scent drifted into my nose. “What else did you bring?”

“Antivan brandy,” he responded as he removed the stopper from the bottle and poured a little of the liquid into each glass, offering me one when he was done. “I had to debate with myself about drinking in the chapel but I decided that Andraste will forgive me if it ends up being an issue.”

I smiled a little at his conclusion, looking down into the glass before looking up at him again. His eyes, I thought, were the same color as the liquid. “Are you particularly devout?”

“I’d say yes. I believe wholeheartedly, even if sometimes the Maker’s plan doesn’t make any sense to me.”

“Why?” I asked, pulling my knee across the bench to turn and face him more absolutely. “I don’t mean that in a, like, questioning way or something. I’m just curious because I have no real concept of…connection to it. I _feel_ strongly, but I don’t know _why_.”

“While I was a templar, a lot of…very unfortunate situations that arose. My faith is a lot of what helped me get through. I would say it was practically the only reason, honestly.”

“I can feel it in me,” I responded, holding the glass between both hands. Cullen moved and I shifted so that he could sit beside me, facing the opposite direction. “When I walk into the chapel, when I look at the statue of Andraste…At service. I don’t know how to explain it. I can…feel a faith, a level of faith that makes me think I really believed in Andraste and the Maker, whoever I was before. It’s like with my family being dead. I don’t know who they are or what our relationship was like but I ache, despite all that, when I talk about them or think about the fact that I’ll never get to know them again.” Without thinking, I lifted the glass to my lips, letting a sip of the drink pass them. It was warm and sweet, although there was a distinct cool burn that I assumed was the alcohol. My hand was shaking a little when I brought the glass back to rest atop my leg.

He turned and his hand, warm through the thick sweatshirt, settled on my shoulder. “I wish I knew what to say, Echo.”

“I don’t know if I need words. It’s just…having you around helps.” Cullen’s hand fell away and I slid closer, resting my head against his shoulder. “This is enough. You and I, just being two people together. When I’m with you, it doesn’t matter that I don’t know who I was because who I am is enough for this.”

“I…I’m glad,” he breathed before lifting the brandy to his lips.

“Me too. I don’t know who I am or what I’m doing but you, Solas, and Varric…and even Cassandra and Leliana to a certain degree, sometimes. You let me figure it out. I’m figuring myself out because of who you all are. I just wish I was more help.”

“You will be. You are, for morale anyway. Maybe you can’t fight yet but that can be learned.”

“What do you mean I’m ‘good for morale’? My parents all but caused this.”

“You might know what happened, who did it. And you can save us. Your blood is the key to fixing everything. You’re alive, you’re okay, and you’re here. And your codename, I think. Varric’s a clever one.”

I smiled a little as I sat up from against him and curved around the end of the bench so that we were facing the same direction, away from the piano. I lifted my glass and clinked it gently against his. “Perfer et obdura. To you, Cullen.”

“…dolor hic tibi proderit olim. To _you_ , Herald.”

I rolled my eyes and took an eye-watering swig.

We stayed in the chantry’s chapel through the changing of the candles and the sun was threatening to drive by the time we, more drunk on sleeplessness than brandy, broke out into the square once again.

At least I was. Cullen seemed mostly unaffected, if not a little more relaxed than normal.

He insisted on carrying everything that remained of our evening – the ‘blanket’ thrown over one shoulder, the drink in one hand and the glasses in the other. While I appreciated his chivalry, it did mean that I couldn’t hold his arm – a point which disappointed me but about which I couldn’t really argue. So I walked closely at his side the short distance to the front of the apartment building and then to my tiny little home.

“I’ll ask someone to bring you food later, but I’d say you should spend your day resting. Come find me when you’re ready to face the world again and we’ll get you fitted for armor.”

I wanted him to touch me; like I wanted to feel the warm, calloused hand he had put on my shoulder against my cheek. His eyes, which were often hardened and focused, seemed warmer. He always seemed kind to me – well, except maybe when he was reprimanding his men – but there was something different about the look in his eyes in those moments. It made me feel…safe.

“What about you?” I asked.

“This will be far from my first sleepless night. And it was much more pleasant than the rest of them.”

The smile he wore made me blush, even though he intended his sentiment innocently enough. I desperately wished he wasn’t burdened with so many things. Any attempt at being forward would be awkward at best.

“Why don’t you come in? I can at least make you coffee.”

He lifted the hand that held the glasses and turned his wrist to check his watch. He frowned a little. “Should try and sleep a little before breakfast.”

“You can sleep here. I mean…I can nap on the couch until you leave. And make coffee before you go.” I knew my face was red as I turned to unlock my door. I was trying desperately to come off as non-committal and pathetic as possible.

“I can’t ask you to sleep on your couch.”

“You didn’t, I offered. Besides, you won’t fit on it. I’m not trying to twist your arm or anything, Commander.”

He smiled at me a little as it felt like his eyes searched mine before he, to my surprise, followed me into my apartment.  As he moved farther in I skirted around him to close the door. I took the bottle and glasses, settling them down on one of the countertops before taking the oversized towel and shaking it out over the linoleum of the ‘kitchen’ that I intended to sweep after Cullen went to sleep.

It was then, as he stood facing the bed, that I realized his jacket was raped over my pillow. I blushed furiously and rushed over to gather it up. “I…uh…meant to bring it with me and laid it down when I grabbed the towel.”

The smile and slight blush in his own cheeks made me think that he didn’t believe me as I moved to set it on the back of a chair in the ‘dining room’.

He stood a little awkwardly at the edge of my bed, eyes shifting from me to the mattress and back.

“Get in, get in. Time is precious and you need all the sleep you can get. What time do you need to get up?”

“Five thirty,” he responded after a minute and I was half-tempted to bend down and unlace his shoes for him but stopped myself.

As he sat to remove his shoes I moved to the edge of the bed and set the alarm for 5:35, in case I fell asleep and couldn’t wake him up myself.

I peeled back the covers, as I made my bed every morning after Cassandra taught me how to do so, before I ushered him into it. It took every ounce of good manners for me not to just climb in with him. With a small smile, I lifted the blankets closer to his chin and patted him gently on the shoulder. “Get some sleep, Commander. Pleasant dreams.”

He smiled wanly at me before he closed his eyes and I moved away, turning off all the lights that I could while still being able to be productive.

I changed into bland gray sleep sorts that I usually ignored and tiptoed around my apartment, sweeping the kitchen before delicately setting out things for the coffee that I would make before I woke him up.

I had settled into a corner in the kitchen, back against the angle the floor cupboards made, with a book resting on my bent knees.

I was on my second read-through of _And So Is the Golden City Blackened_ , curled in the corner of my kitchen, deciding that the dull fluorescent bulb was the least likely to wake Cullen.

It was some time later, nearing the 5:30 wake-up call but not quite there, that I began to hear something. At first I thought maybe it was just one of the many random noises that plagued Haven but, as it grew louder, it became obvious to me that it was distinctly Cullen.

“No,” he growled, loud enough to hear over however far the distance was between us. “No, you won’t break me!”

I jumped from my position and let the book fall to the floor, running the short span to Cullen’s side without a thought to what could be awaiting me.

He was alone, thrashing slightly in the tangle of my bedclothes as he hissed things about how they wouldn’t ever get him to talk.

“Cullen,” I said, afraid of what he would do if I touched him. He didn’t respond so I tried again. Still nothing. Trying to avoid his swinging arm, I reached down and touched his shoulder. “Cullen, you’re all right. Wake up. _Cullen_.”

His eyes flew open and he groaned, grimacing. He lifted a hand and rubbed down his slightly stubbly face before propping himself up against the behind my bed. “I didn’t mean for you to see that.”

I moved around the bed and settled in, close beside him as there wasn’t exactly a surplus of room. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I replied simply, turning my head to look up at him. “It was nearly time for you to get up and I wanted to do it myself. Thought you’d appreciate waking up some way other than an alarm.”

He looked at me hard for a long moment before smiling a little. “I just...I was hoping the nightmares wouldn’t come, not right now. I wasn’t sure how you’d react, I suppose.”

“What is there to react to? I don’t know a lot of details about what you’ve been through but I know that you have been through a lot. And, for most people, memories don’t just disappear.” I smiled a little and reached my hand over to pat him gently on the thigh. It was probably too familiar, too close but I did it anyway.

“You’re not…upset or afraid?”

“Of what? Of you?” I snorted and shook my head, moving my hand to squeeze his before bringing my own back into my lap. “Because of what? Because you have nightmares? Who doesn’t?”

“It’s more than that,” he dropped his head back against the wall. “It’s the memories that cause the nightmares.”

I glanced at the clock and frowned a little. I needed to start the coffee or else it wouldn’t give him enough time to enjoy it.

“Come with me,” I slid from the bed and moved around the end of it, taking his hand lightly in mine before tugging him gently to his feet. “I have to start your coffee.” I tapped the alarm to keep it from going off later and couldn’t hide the smile as his body aligned close to mine. He didn’t immediately relinquish my hand. In fact, he didn’t let go of it at all.

I led him to the kitchen and grabbed the book from where I had dropped it on the floor, placing it on the counter before I began the process of making coffee.

I turned to glance at him and found him leaning against the wall, muscular arms folded over his chest as his eyes followed me. He was smiling.

“How do you like the book so far?” he asked, pushing off of the wall to pick it up.

“It’s so crazy to me. I’ve read it through already. I actually…” shrugging a little, I gestured to a notepad adorned with my chicken scratch that sat near the edge of the counter. “This time I’m making my own notes. Things I want to know about. There’s an entire section about things I wanted to ask you specifically.”

“You want to ask _me_?” he smiled, surprised. He reached a hand out and pulled the notes towards himself before looking up at me for permission. I smiled a little wider at him and nodded once before I grabbed two mugs while the coffee maker started doing its job.

“I figured,” I started as I collected the sugar and creamer packets in case he wanted some, “you lived through it. You’re even mentioned by name in the section about Kinloch Hold.”

“You know Leliana was a part of the squad that rescued me, right?  She probably has a better idea of the whole picture than I do.”

“That may be true,” I shrugged a little, throwing my gaze to the clock. The coffee needed to brew faster. “But I’d still very much like to talk to you. I mean, if you’re willing. I don’t want you to feel like you have to…I don’t know, humor me or whatever.”

Cullen smiled slightly, his cheeks a little pink as he closed over the notebook and turned back to me. “Hardly, Herald.”

“Oh, no. Don’t you start that nonsense again, _Commander_.”

His face broke into a grin and he folded his arms across his chest, leaning against my counter. “It’s necessary for your safety, you know.”

“Here? Alone in my apartment?” I don’t think I really realized until that moment that we were _alone_ , alone. I suppressed a shiver of acknowledgement that Cullen had slept in my bed and was standing in my kitchen. And I wasn’t wearing pants.

I think the same thought must have hit him too because his cheeks grew redder and his arms dropped. I was suddenly very aware that my legs were all but bare practically just beneath my hips but tried to avoid drawing undue attention to them. I realized for the first time that his sweatshirt went farther down my legs than my shorts did.

“I suppose you’re right. If they know where you are to bug the room, we have bigger problems.”

“That’s comforting,” I snorted and he chuckled, although his eyes looked serious as he responded.

“I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“You might have to sleep over more often, then,” I grinned, trying to make light of the situation before the implications of my statement dawned on me. “I mean, you already have clothes here.”

He let out a laugh as I busied myself pouring coffee.

“Do you take cream or sugar?”

He shook his head and I handed him his mug before I lifted my own to my lips. It was hot but not insufferably so. “Me neither. They gave me the rations with the machine. I’ll have to figure out how to give it back.”

“Cassandra would love it. She’s got a sweet tooth.”

“Oh, I’ll bring it with me when I leave today and hunt her down.”

“Why are you drinking coffee? You should rest.”

“Trust me, this one cup won’t keep me awake. I’m quite exhausted. Unlike you, I’m not used to being awake for much more than twelve hours lately.”

He laughed a little around his sips of coffee and I leaned down, resting my nondescript white mug and my elbows on the counter.

“If you want to leave your glasses here, I’ll wash them when I get up.”  I made no offer of his sweatshirt and wished I never had to give it back. I wondered vaguely if my bed would smell like him. I hoped so.

He acquiesced after some time and we settled into the couch, him with a second cup of coffee and me with an overwhelming exhaustion. I do not remember him leaving, but I do remember being enveloped in the faint smell of embrium, coffee, and shoe polish.


	6. Ache

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been so long! Finally getting settled into my new house. Should be able to post some sort of regular updates, no promises yet. I've also started replaying Inquisition sooooo.
> 
> I'm pretty sure I promised a longer chapter this time, and I lied. But! The next chapter will be 'the first mission' so I imagine, as long as I have the muse, it'll be relatively lengthy. Here's some fluff.

I woke some time later to a knocking at my door. First I noticed that my stomach felt hollow, second that I had somehow managed to make it to my bed, third that the sun was in my west-facing barred window, and finally that now there was a dwarf standing at the foot my bed with a food tray.

“Good morning, sunshine,” he grinned and moved around my bed as I sat up, setting the tray across my lap before he disappeared only to reappear dragging a chair from my diminutive kitchen table.

“I have an overwhelming sense of deja-vu,” I murmured around a mouthful of pasta coated in cheese. “Which is rather impressive, considering.”

 Varric laughed and lifted an ankle to cross his knee. “Curly found Solas and I at breakfast this morning and asked that one of us bring you food. This is the third time I’ve come by.”

“How’d you get in?”

He wiggled his fingers with a grin, “Lock-picking. Magic fingers.”

“Really? Is it hard?”

“Depends on the lock. But if you’ve got the patience, no.”

“Will you teach me?”

Varric gave me a strange look before his face broke into a grin, “Cassandra will likely _hate_ that.” He paused, chuckled. “I’d love to.”

“At least there will be something more useful I can do when I go out with you all.”

“I don’t think that’s _exactly_ what Leliana had in mind.”

“But it’s a start. I have to go train with Cullen again. I don’t know when we’re meant to leave but I can’t imagine I’ve got much more time to learn.”

“Most of these people, the people here at Haven, have been fighting for years – not days. Granted, there are also plenty of civilians too.  They just won’t be wandering around with us, trying to figure out what’s going on.”

“What do you mean, trying to find out what’s going on? I thought we already knew?”

“Ehhhh,” Varric smiled sheepishly and scrubbed his hand across his stubbly chin. “We have some ideas. Some solid leads. And, as an organization, we are possibly the best-suited to _figure_ it out…but there’s still _a lot_ we don’t know.”

I swallowed a big mouthful and cracked open the bottle of water he had brought, taking a long drink before I slid the tray off to the side and swung my feet over the edge of my bed.

“I guess it’s time to get to work, then.”

I was able to train with Cullen daily, among the tests and brain training that Solas was a part of. I ached every minute of every day and I still fell on my butt more often than not (about 99.8% of the time). He had taken me to the blacksmith and I was fitted for light studded leathers, more pieces than I had limbs.

I looked badass, I must say. It was weird at first, growing accustomed to the difference between regular clothing and the body-encasing armor. In Haven it helped to keep me warm but I worried that it would be too hot in other parts of the country. The leather creaked as I sat in the uncomfortable metal chair in the War Room. Cullen was the only other person in armor, as we had been practicing in the training yard when a messenger came to collect us for the meeting.

They told me I was needed. They told me I had to go. They told me, to understand fully what we were up against, I had to see it. And the world needed to see me – the last beacon of hope.

We were meant to leave Haven a morning quite a few months after my arrival. Teams of scouts had come and gone repeatedly during my recovery and training. Varric and Cassandra had disappeared and reappeared sporadically. Solas was requested occasionally but more often than not he was required at Haven to assist me.

Solas, Cassandra, and Varric would be leaving with me to venture out. We had many things to do that would likely keep us gone for quite some time. About a week prior to our departure, they took as much of my blood as I could handle and I slept a perfectly good day away as a result.

It had been months since I had commandeered the Commander’s sweatshirt and he hadn’t asked for it back. He had brought me dinner as I was preparing my military-issue duffel for our excursion. Rations and changes of clothing, mostly.

Cullen rapped his knuckles lightly against the door and I told him to come in – he set the two trays of dinner down on my counter on his way over to me.

I had long-since given him back his suit jacket, which he was currently wearing. His sweatshirt, however, was folded at the end of the bed beside a pile of clothing I was packing.

“I meant to give it to you before I left,” I gestured to the burgundy pile, a stark contrast to the general black, blue, and white of my wardrobe.

“I didn’t anticipate its return,” he smiled at me and lifted the shirt, moving to my side as he slid it into the bag. “But make sure you bring it back. And that _you_ come back.”

Truth be told, I was terrified. I was afraid because I had no idea what to expect, because I could barely defend myself, because my only talent was playing the thrice-damned piano.

And because I wasn’t sure if I would ever see Cullen again. Just because I was _theoretically_ immune to the disease didn’t mean I couldn’t _die_.

Actually, that wasn’t true. I didn’t know what any of it meant. All I knew was that they thought I was immune because of my blood. Who was I to say they were even right? No one at Haven exhibited symptoms. I didn’t even know if that meant they didn’t have it or if it just meant that I couldn’t tell.

And with that I realized I didn’t really know anything. Suddenly I felt the truth of my situation come crashing down on top of me, suffocating me with my own ignorance.

I gasped as if I truly couldn’t breathe, releasing a shirt with both hands as one flew to my throat as if to free me from the impossibility of it all. I could feel Cullen around me but his voice sounded far away, or muffled like I was under water.

“Echo,” he frowned, his face in front of mine as he turned me from my bed. “Echo, are you all right?”

And for a brief moment, he was gone. A flash of something that I couldn’t identify, images that shone but were blurred all the same. It was gone almost as quickly as it had come but I had a niggling feeling in the back of my mind. A memory of the image or a memory all on its own; I didn’t know.

I shivered violently and threw myself against him, burying my face against the smooth fabric of his shirt and fisted his jacket in my now-clenched fingers.

His heavy, warm arms wrapped around me and his cheek pressed into my hair. My glasses pinched against my face as I hid myself in him but I didn’t even care enough to turn my head.

I clung to him and he surrounded me as I sobbed pitifully into his shirtfront and he breathed heavily into my hair. It was some time before I was able to pull back from him, releasing his jacket and turning away to wipe at the mess I had made of my face.

“I…” I began, sliding my glasses into my hair to scrub at my eyes before I removed them entirely to wipe them on my shirt. It made it easier; I couldn’t see the specifics of his face, couldn’t see the damage I had done to more than just his fine shirt. “I…” I hiccupped, rubbing the sleeve of my shirt across my eyes.

His warm, dry hand slid against my cheek, his thumb running along where my ear met my head as his fingers curled against my scalp. It was nearing six months from my arrival to Haven. Six months spent almost exclusively in the company of the man that held my face now in both of his hands. He leaned down, pulling me closer gently and his lips – dry, scorching, _perfect_ even as I felt the scar – brushed over my forehead, bereft of bangs now that they had grown long enough to tuck behind my ears.

Another sob escaped me when he did so and I wrapped my arms around his middle, flinging myself against him again and nearly breaking my glasses with the effort.

 He enveloped me in his strong arms and held me tightly, his mouth hovering over the spot of his kiss. “Come back to me, Echo.”

“I…” I started, gritting my teeth against the sob that rose, unbidden, in my throat. I swallowed it and nestled myself against his chest. “I promise, Cullen.” When I spoke, his body relaxed just a fraction and he held me until my feet began to ache.


End file.
